Viewers were shocked on Thursday during CNN Newsroom when correspondent Drew Griffin of CNN's special investigations unit not only used the n-word in his report, but the racial slur went on live television uncensored.

Griffin was reporting about three men in Mississippi who were charged with a hate crime for beating a black man named James Craig Anderson and then running him over with a truck.

At the end of this, Deryl Dedmon is laughing with his friends and actually called on a cell phone and, pardon my language but there's no other way to say this - 'I just ran over that f-ing n--ger,' that's what he said. And it was a clear-cut case of pure racial-intent murder that took place there, which is why it was so easy to apply the hate crime legislation in this case, Griffin said on CNN. There was no question about it, unlike the circumstances involving the case in Florida.

Co-host Brooke Baldwin did not comment on the use of the N-word on live TV.